I like wearing a tie. I know, this seems like blasphemy in light of the current trend to dress-down in our culture. Who could possibly ‘like’ to wear a tie after all?

It has admittedly been an acquired taste.

In my youth I viewed the necktie as an anachronistic contrivance intended to enforce submission to petty minds groping for power. But over time I discovered that people treated me differently when I wore a tie, and I learned to take advantage of this phenomenon to my benefit. I didn’t come like to wear this peculiar embellishment of the male dress costume however, until I came to understand its history and function.

This post is an exploration into the symbolism of the necktie and the almost mythic nature of that symbolism. The necktie and the response to it is an example of a stimulus response behavior which is well acknowledged, but for which an understanding is curiously hard to elicit.

The symbolism embedded in the necktie suggests the existence of a collective non-conscious, and raises the question: What other cultural artifacts are there burred in that collective non-conscious? This question is especially important when contemplating change.

The Myth of Professionalism

Career guidance counselors, image consultants, recruiters, and even my mother, counseled the importance of first impressions. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” they say. They quote research about the decision to hire being made in the first 30 seconds of an interview. Thus, they counsel, “that interview suit is really important.”

When I ask why that interview suit is so important, the universal response is something like, “it shows professionalism.” To which I ask what exactly they mean by “professionalism.” The response at this point is usually a little less certain, something like, “it shows you are competent.” This leads logically to the question, how does a wearing tie demonstrate competency? I point out that I’ve seen nuclear qualified welders who can do magic with a welding stick, and they don’t show up to work in a tie. I ask, would those welders be more competent if they did show up wearing one?

This typically leads to the deer in the headlight blank stare, then invariably something which leads back to professionalism, then to competency in a kind of infinite loop.

The necktie has also, probably thanks to John T Molloy’s book, Dress for Success, been associated with power. Powerful men wear neckties. Really powerful men wear red neckties.

The problem here is that while wearing an impeccably knotted necktie to my job interview is important, the fact is, as the job candidate, I’m the least powerful person in the room, and often the only one wearing a tie. Similarly, if you go to an upscale restaurant, it is not uncommon for every waitperson in the place to be sporting a tie, while the real power brokers in the dining hall are making their deals in polo shirts.

Other terms that are frequently associated the necktie include “put together,” as compared to falling apart, or “smart,” the meaning of which is related to neatness, not intelligence, implying one cannot be neat without a tie, which is of course, ridiculous.

What these advisers have observed—consistent with my own experience—is that for certain contexts, there exists a correlation between dress and the likelihood of good outcome, especially when it comes to something like landing a job or making a sale. What they assert is cause and effect, and when the cause and effect relationship is challenged, they often seem dumbfounded.

A Very Brief History of the Necktie

A search of the web for the history of the necktie generally begins with some mention of the Chinese Emperor Shis Huang Ii who’s buried terracotta army all wore what appear to be neckties. The western practice appears to be credited to Croatian soldiers in the 17th century, and later to the good sportsmen on the rowing team at Oxford University. Of course, these histories don’t talk about why these practices were adopted.

The best explanation I have found for why the necktie became a common article of dress, came from a book I read in high school (way back in the 70’s) on “why things are.” Most cultural artifacts began with a practical purpose. The handshake, a gesture of peace, supposedly has its roots in verifying your acquaintance doesn’t have a weapon hidden up his sleeve. The authors suggested that the necktie is no different. It likely began as a functional garment, likely originally as a scarf to hold the collar up against cold and wind. Because the wealthier individuals could afford finer material for the scarf, silk and lace for example, the functional aspect of the scarf was soon superseded by the symbolic function. The mere impracticality of the garment differentiated the wearer from those who performed common labor.

This source also suggested that the shift from cravat to necktie probably occurred in the early to mid 19th century with the rise of the industrial class, and the wealth that came with it. The cravat, they suggest, indicated social class gained through family heritage, while the necktie, again originating from a functional scarf contrasted in color with the shirt, suggested social status gained by wealth. One could not be accepted into the upper crust of the cravat wearing crowd if you were a self made man, but you could be distinguished as one who wields power by wearing a necktie of high quality silk.

Portraits of US presidents in the 19th century show a shift from cravat to neckties at a time which correlates with the rise of the industrial age. George Washington, a propertied man of distinguished pedigree wore a cravat, while Abraham Lincoln, a man from very humble beginnings, wore a necktie.

The Windsor tie and the generally accepted method of wearing it, knotted in one of three ways with length just to the bottom of the trowser belt line, hasn’t had a functional value for more than 120 years. But the symbolism of the tie has survived into the 20th century, as in a symbolic indicator of class, the distinction between tie wearing “white collar” workers who labored with their minds, and tieless “blue collar” workers who labored with their hands.

The symbolism changed however, probably some time in the early 20th century. I’ve found no reference as to when or why this changed, though I speculate that a shift may have occurred as result of the rise of the “office worker” in the early 20th century. The result being to shift the symbolism from important person, to a symbol of being engaged in an important task.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Lessons from a Wedding

Picture a wedding: White gown, black tie, the provocative music of Mendelssohn, the ceremonial lighting of candles, the exchange of rings, the recitation of vows.

It was for just such an occasion in the late 1980’s that I dug that one suit and tie even the most nonconforming male needs to keep in the dark recesses of my closet. It was a summer morning wedding in a small chapel on a hill overlooking swaying wheat fields in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. After the ceremony, the bridal party formed a reception line outside in the still cool morning sunshine.

As I stood in line waiting for my turn to congratulate the bride and groom, I was people watching, and took note of the four people who stood out in line in front of me. There were two women in front of me who stood out because while every other woman in attendance was wearing a dress or skirt, they were wearing shorts. A little way in front of them were a teenage couple. They stood out because the young man’s tie was color coordinate with his purple hair, and the young woman’s black high-top Doc Martins were in obvious contrast with her white blouse and neat pleated black skirt.

When the teenage couple reached the wedding party, the bride beamed with joy, giving each a warm embrace. However when the two women in shorts reached the bride, the bride’s expression went fleetingly from one of joy, to one of shock before recovering her composure. She embraced these two women, but her embrace was hesitant, as if the embrace would soil her gown.

First Sales Presentation

My first real full time job after my undergraduate degree was working as a radiation safety engineer (health physicist) at a commercial nuclear plant. One project I worked on resulted in a proposal to spend about a million dollars on a piece of software, and I was the one appointed to present this proposal to senior management.

As I was leaving for home the night before I would present our case to that senior management, my colleague said, “Oh, and Tom, wear a tie.”

To set a context for my reaction to this suggestion, I should point out that while a nuclear plant is not typically filthy, it is an industrial site, and not exactly a dress-up friendly environment. So when my colleague suggested wearing a tie, I must have looked shocked.

He asked, “Is this important to you Tom?” to which I answered in the affirmative, and he again said, “then wear a tie.”

The Symbolic Meaning Embedded in Dress Clothes

Those guidance counselors, and John Malloy and all those other people who talk about first impressions… They have it wrong.

We dress-up because it sends a message to others that we are acknowledging something of importance.

That teenage couple at that wedding, while perhaps stressing decorum with hair color and shoe style, had made the effort to don shirt and tie and skirt and blouse respectively, to go beyond their everyday standard of dress, because it acknowledged the importance of the event. The two women who came to that wedding in shorts by contrast, could have been on their way to the beach.

When I gave my presentation for a million dollar project to senior managers at that nuclear power plant, I was conveying the message that I believed this project was important.

That first impression those career guidance counselors talk about? They have it backwards. It isn’t the impression of me that is important, it is the impression that I think they are important that counts. I’m not wearing a suit and tie to an interview because I’m important, I’m wearing it to convey that I think this meeting, that this job is important.

That power tie isn’t really about power. Powerful men wear ties to show they believe (correctly or not) that they are engaged in doing important work.

Looking at it from the perspective of the receiver of that message, I don’t want my doctor or financial adviser or lawyer to wear a tie because they are important, I want them to wear a tie because I want to know that they believe what they are doing, helping me, is important. When I wear a tie on a date with my sweetheart, she beams at me because my dressing up makes her feel important.

When I wear a tie, it isn’t for my benefit, it’s for your benefit. It isn’t about me. It’s all about you.

The Moral of the Story

I used the example of the neckties in this post because they often stirs passionate condemnations from people who are expected to wear them. And yet they persist.

They persist because there is a coded meaning embedded in the gesture of wearing a necktie, a code that is buried deeply in our collective non-conscious. What is curious is that we generally respond to the stimuli, but have remarkable difficulty articulating why we respond the way we do. We have trouble being explicit about the meaning that we clearly attach to that symbol.

As you pursue change, it will be important to ask what what other codes are embedded in the culture that effect daily lives, which influence behavior, but for which we are unable to articulate the actual meaning.